Fibre Broadband Modem/Router Setup Advice Needed

[PAULO40]

Hi All.

I've recently upgraded my broadband to Sky Fibre Max, and was hoping someone might be able to give me some advice as to the best setup to get the maximum out of my broadband service.

To compliment my upgrade to fibre I bought an Asus DSL-N66U N900 VDSL modem router, and it is setup and running. I'm not a fan of the supplied SR hubs from Sky, so thought this might be a worthwhile investment. Everything seems to be working well, apart from a few random times everyday where my internet connection will drop out briefly. I have only been connected to fibre for 5 days, and have read that I'd need to probably wait up to 2 weeks for my connection to settle down, so hoping this is the reason for my connection dropping out, well that's my assumption anyway, I'd be grateful if someone can confirm this for me.

Thing is, I'm not the most technically minded person, so when I saw all the options for the Asus router on its configuration page during setup, hardly any of it made sense to me and it all went over my head, as for the user manual, that didn't really help either. I have a number of queries that I would like help with, these are:

1. Are there any settings for the router that I should make sure are set to specific values for optimum performance?
2. Would there be any benefits to using the supplied SR102 hub from Sky as a standalone modem, and using the Asus modem router as just a router. (Should this be beneficial, where should wired device connections connect to)?
3. Is it worth fitting a VDSL / Phone splitter faceplate to the phone line master socket, or should I keep it as standard and use the supplied splitter / microfilter that came with the router?

Any advice on these points, or any other advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[bill001g]

That is strange that they call that fiber when you have a VDSL device.....I suppose it can be fiber most the way with a conversion to copper dsl.

I have not used a asus device with a built in modem for a long time but almost all the other asus routers have excellent logging screens to tell you why things go down. In particular you will see if you are actually losing the physical dsl line. If it says nothing then the problem is farther into the network.

Your line should never drop even from day 1. Now the ISP will have issue now and then but most times once it is running you will see no issue for very long periods of time.

In general you only care about splitters and such if you have actual old style telephones. Most people I know only use cell because they do not want to pay for a second phone.

If the DSL line itself is going down it pays to check your wiring very carefully. If possible plug the router directly into the telco demark box with no other wires or phones connected. If you still see drops then the phone company needs to come back out and fix it.

 

[PAULO40]

That is strange that they call that fiber when you have a VDSL device.....I suppose it can be fiber most the way with a conversion to copper dsl.

I have not used a asus device with a built in modem for a long time but almost all the other asus routers have excellent logging screens to tell you why things go down. In particular you will see if you are actually losing the physical dsl line. If it says nothing then the problem is farther into the network.

Your line should never drop even from day 1. Now the ISP will have issue now and then but most times once it is running you will see no issue for very long periods of time.

In general you only care about splitters and such if you have actual old style telephones. Most people I know only use cell because they do not want to pay for a second phone.

If the DSL line itself is going down it pays to check your wiring very carefully. If possible plug the router directly into the telco demark box with no other wires or phones connected. If you still see drops then the phone company needs to come back out and fix it.

Thanks for the info Bill, really appreciate it.

My connection seems to be behaving itself for the last few days, ever since I did a factory reset on the router. However, after the reset the router it wouldn't connect to the internet, I had to restore the settings I had saved prior to resetting it, and then it worked. I don't understand why it wouldn't connect after the reset, as when I first set it up, I pretty sure I didn't change any settings, the only thing I had to do was enter my Sky username and password. Very strange!! As I said though, I haven't noticed any drop outs on any of my devices since resetting the router and restoring previous settings. I'm sure I haven't set the router up totally correct, definitely settings somewhere that could be tweaked but way beyond my abilities, but it is working at the moment and that's the main thing.

Thanks again for your advice.

 

[Beachloveriow]

Hi
I'm a Bt broad band user .
Just to clarify some tech terms In the uk the terms "fibre" "broadband" usually relate to a VDSL connection.
Most VDSL connections in the uk are FTTC fibre to the cabinet. The rest of the distance is carried on the copper cables.

As for the OPs questions. Firstly I read the the Asus n66u is quiet famous for its poor performance. Just check the reviews on Amazon.
Secondly it is better to get a modum router with a firmware chipset compatable with the type of cabinet you are connected too
Take a look at this site to identify your cabinet
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/cabinet-lookup.htm

Thirdly it's a myth that broadband needs two weeks to settle down. Each time you are disconnected it is probably because of errors
Errors from the modem, errors on the DSL connection, or errors on wifi.
Each time you are disconnected dynamic line management will make some adjustments to your SNR and margins to try to correct the errors. This usually means a reduction in speeds.

In terms of adding a splitter or filter. This depends on what type of phone socket you have. For example I have a newish socket with two connections one above each other. One is for the phone and another is for the DSL cable. I do not need a filter or splitter.
Are you connecting to your master socket? You will get the best results an less frequent drops if you always connect to the main master socket in your house and not use extensions.

I'm unsure about sky settings and passwords but it was my understanding they used to keep these hidden to prevent the use of third party routers. But I could be wrong.

I'm edging my best bet on the disconnection issues being with the Asus router.
A very good router modum that can be used with uk broadband is the Tplink w9980 and it's reasonable priced.

Have a look at Kitz it has a wealth of knowledge about U.K. Broadband

Hope this helps
Good luck

 

[PAULO40]

Hi
I'm a Bt broad band user .
Just to clarify some tech terms In the uk the terms "fibre" "broadband" usually relate to a VDSL connection.
Most VDSL connections in the uk are FTTC fibre to the cabinet. The rest of the distance is carried on the copper cables.

As for the OPs questions. Firstly I read the the Asus n66u is quiet famous for its poor performance. Just check the reviews on Amazon.
Secondly it is better to get a modum router with a firmware chipset compatable with the type of cabinet you are connected too
Take a look at this site to identify your cabinet
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/cabinet-lookup.htm

Thirdly it's a myth that broadband needs two weeks to settle down. Each time you are disconnected it is probably because of errors
Errors from the modem, errors on the DSL connection, or errors on wifi.
Each time you are disconnected dynamic line management will make some adjustments to your SNR and margins to try to correct the errors. This usually means a reduction in speeds.

In terms of adding a splitter or filter. This depends on what type of phone socket you have. For example I have a newish socket with two connections one above each other. One is for the phone and another is for the DSL cable. I do not need a filter or splitter.
Are you connecting to your master socket? You will get the best results an less frequent drops if you always connect to the main master socket in your house and not use extensions.

I'm unsure about sky settings and passwords but it was my understanding they used to keep these hidden to prevent the use of third party routers. But I could be wrong.

I'm edging my best bet on the disconnection issues being with the Asus router.
A very good router modum that can be used with uk broadband is the Tplink w9980 and it's reasonable priced.

Have a look at Kitz it has a wealth of knowledge about U.K. Broadband

Hope this helps
Good luck

Thanks for all the info, I appreciate your comments. Things have come to light that could be the reason for the problems I've been having with my internet connection, that I'll explain below.

I've found out what the issue was, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't anything to do with the Asus modem router at all. I contacted Sky a week and a bit ago, as I've noticed my broadband speed getting slower, and wanted to query the dropouts with them. They performed a line check and found a fault with my line. Couple of days later, BT Openreach came out and checked my line and found that there was loads of faults / errors on it , however when checking my line in more depth they couldn't find any problems. They cleared the faults / errors and speeds are back up to what they should be, also everyone in the family hasn't noticed any more dropouts at all since this being done. BT Openreach engineers told me to keep an eye on my speed and connection for next few weeks to see if I notice any problems. Thing is, they gave me some advice that could be the reason for all the faults. They noticed I was using a 6 gang extension lead that the modem router was drawing its power from, along with 5 other devices. Connected to the extension lead was a timer device that was being turned on a 7:00am every morning. When doing their checks, Openreach noticed the faults were happening ay 7:00am every morning, coincidence?? They told me I could be experiencing REIN issues with the devices and/or extension lead I was using that the modem router was connected to. I disconnected the extension lead the same day Openreach came out, moving all the devices to another part of my house, and making sure the modem router was plugged directly into a wall socket. Sky contacted me yesterday as a follow up to Openreach coming out, so I asked them if they could check the line for faults / errors and they told me all is good, no errors or faults were showing. As I said, my connection is a lot faster now and more stable than it was before, obviously early days, but if faults were popping up at 7:00am every morning still, I'm sure Sky would be able to see them when they checked the line yesterday. Fingers crossed its all sorted now.

As for the Asus DSL-N66U modem router itself, I'm happy with it. When my fibre was first activated it worked really well and handled all my families internet usage with ease, including multiple streaming on different devices around the home. And since the faults / errors have been cleared, its back to running as well as any other modem router I've had in the past. Its now fast and stable, and seems to be handling my fibre broadband really well. As I said before, I'm not the most technically minded person, and I'm sure there are settings that can be changed to improve its performance, however I wouldn't know where to start, but for now its done everything I've expected it to do. I always take internet reviews with a pinch of salt, in my opinion I feel people are more inclined to share their horror stories than good experiences with anything they purchase.

I'll be watching my internet connection like a hawk for the next couple of weeks, and if I remember, I'll update this thread just to let you all know if its behaving itself, or if any issues arise again.

Thanks again for the comments

 

[PAULO40]

Right a quick update on this, wondering if anyone has any thoughts that they may be able to share with me. Well, after a few days of the Openreach engineer coming out, and resetting the errors on the line, the dropout problem occurred again. I swapped the Asus modem router with the ISPs modem router and still the dropouts happened. I had another engineer come out to my property, and he gave my line a good inspection. I can't remember exactly what he did but he changed a wire in the cabinet, and changed a junction box (at least I think thats what he said) that had gone green and looked corroded. However, he seemed a bit doubtful that the work he did would sort the dropout of connection problems I'm getting. How right he was!! As soon as he left I checked the internet speed and it wasn't as fast as it should be, down by 10Mbps, and then the dropouts started happening again. I've copied some entries from the Asus madem routers system log to see if anyone can tell me what might be going on with my connection. The last 2 entries of this log that relate to WEB user login was myself logging into my router, immediately after the last dropout occurred.

2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[25559]: exiting on receipt of SIGTERM
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: started, version 2.52 cachesize 150
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: compile time options: IPv6 GNU-getopt no-RTC no-DBus no-I18N no-DHCP no-TFTP
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: using nameserver 90.207.238.99#53
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: using nameserver 90.207.238.97#53
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: reading /etc/resolv.conf
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: ignoring nameserver 127.0.0.1 - local interface
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: using nameserver 90.207.238.99#53
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: using nameserver 90.207.238.97#53
2016-11-26 18:23:31 dnsmasq[6545]: read /etc/hosts - 4 addresses
2016-11-26 18:23:32 kernel: ddns_execute(), DDNS is not enable, so remove /etc/ddns.conf.
2016-11-26 18:33:47 WEB: WEB user <admin> login
2016-11-26 18:44:48 WEB: WEB user <admin> login

I would be grateful if someone could look at this and give me a hint as to whats going on, the system log doesn't make much sense to me, as I'm not that technically minded.

I've supplied the system log to Asus to see if they can elaborate further for me. I've also been in touch with my ISP, who are sending out another engineer for the third time, this time looking more at a possible REIN issue.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

 

[PAULO40]

Just updating this thread.

There was a problem with my line, which was causing the dropouts and the slowing of my fibre broadband connection. After 3 engineer visits, changing the port at the cabinet and capping my download speed down by 5Mbps, I now have a stable, fast broadband connection. I've not had any dropouts for a week now, and download / upload speeds have stayed the same. So nice to have it all working as it should, even though I've had to sacrifice a bit of download speed, not that I've noticed it as I'm still getting 73Mbps download and 20Mbps upload speeds.

Thanks to all that replied to this thread to help me with this issue. Much appreciated.